Cocktail Chronicles
An excellent blog by a man who has more cocktail books than I thought were published.

cocktailnerd
Gabriel has crafted a fine site and shares some of my pain with a state-run liquor system. He also manages to post about 4000 times more than me, and it’s always interesting!

Dave’s Drinks
Anyone who posts about exotic cocktails makes it on this blogroll!

Days That End In “Y”
An all-around drinking blog that posts quality news on the world of spirits, beer, wine, gadgets… the list goes on, as do the posts, which are too numerous to count. “Updated frequently” would be an understatement.

Dr. Bamboo
A fellow Pennsylvanian with a penchant for art and fine cocktails.

Favorite Posts

Every once in a while, someone in the Mixoloseum Chat Room will determine that one Thursday Drink Night a week isn’t enough and start making up drinks on the fly. The love for fun new drinks sometimes just can’t be stopped.

A trio of cocktails came out of a recent cocktail creation session with Tiare from A Mountain of Crushed Ice. One was a gin cocktail with vanilla syrup and cardamom. Another with rhum agricole, Aperol, falernum, and hibiscus grenadine. And finally, this one:

Kenyan Ghost

1oz Pusser’s rum

1oz Zaya rum

1oz orange juice

1/4oz coffee syrup (or 1/4oz coffee liqueur)

1/4oz orgeat syrup

1 dash angostura bitters

1/2oz float of blackstrap rum

orange slice and coffee beans, for garnish

Shake with ice and strain into a collins glass filled with ice. Float the blackstrap. Place the orange slice on top and arrange the coffee beans just so. Stick your straw through the hole in the middle of the orange and enjoy!

The orange juice brightens up the rum and the coffee adds a solid backbone to this fine potion. The orgeat and bitters contribute just the right amount of complexity, and the blackstrap is floated on top with guilty pleasure.

Coffee syrup is so crazy easy to make, you have no excuse!

Coffee Syrup

1/2c coffee beans

1c sugar

1/2c water

Grind the coffee beans and add to the sugar and water in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and remove from the heat. Cover and steep for 2 hours. Strain.

KP Question

One of the ingredients in this drink is Zaya rum, which many would dare only sip and never mix with. What do you think about mixing “top-shelf” booze? And what is the most expensive thing you’ve mixed with?

7 Responses to “Kenyan Ghost”

7 Comments to “
Kenyan Ghost”

Ha! that depends to me, first of all on how much of the top shelf booze you have and how easily accessible it is, then we have the curiosity factor which i dont exactly lack. So i`m not afraid of using some of my top shelf spirits for mixing, but i dont do it all the time.

The rule is, better booze makes better drinks.

But if i would ever get my hands on, say Appleton 30, or havana Club Maximo, and if that was the only bottle, i really dont think i would mix with it, or maybe i would, but just one cocktail, just to try. Then i would guard that bottle with all my armed forces.

The most expensive i`ve mixed with and still mix with are the private labels of heavy demerara rums and with those i mix heartically without any trace of guilty pleasure!

I have no problem mixing top-shelf ingredients. The better the ingredients, the better the cocktail. I will say that some of that has to do with which top-shelf item you’re using. I can’t imagine ever mixing my Brugal Siglo de Oro. It’s too subtle and delicate and would be destroyed in a cocktail. You couldn’t appreciate it.

I don’t know many people who would blush at mixing Zaya though. Not that it isn’t a fantastic and utterly sippable rum, but with such a strong flavor profile, it would almost be criminal to NOT mix it from time to time. The original Guatemalan formula is amazing in a Rum & Ginger with a good, strong-biting ginger beer.

The “Kenyan Ghost” reminds me a lot of a recipe I saw somewhere, and in fact made – the “44 Cordial”, a rum based cordial which is based upon fetishistic repetition of 44. I hope I’m not repeating something boring, but I kind of liked it, so the recipe:

Pierce the orange 44 times with a sharp paring knife and insert the coffee beans. Put rum, orange, and sugar into an airtight, non-reactive jar and stir until the sugar dissolves (this will take forever). Age for 44 days in a dark place, shaking occasionally. Strain out the solids. Keep in the freezer.

It was actually pretty good, although I made it with Bacardi (what can I say? I was young and foolish). Someday (when I have room in my freezer) I’ll make it again with something decent, maybe the El Dorado 5-year.

And as for mixing Zaya? We consumed an entire bottle of it in the frequent preparation of a single drink: the nui nui. Mixing 1 part Zaya to 3 parts Appleton for the rum transforms the drink a tasty, utterly fine, and pleasant tiki drink to hands-down one of the best cocktails we’ve put into rotation at the Forge. If you’re the least bit on the fence about this, allow me to push you right the hell over. Do it. You will not regret a Zaya nui nui. An entire bottle, I say.